About The Artist:

Artist Statement

I am interested in what it means to be a woman in a patriarchal society. How peace can be found through presence, but what presence can exist in an online world? A huge part of my desire to study art now is because we are living through an astronomically revolutionary time period. From media to politics, there has been a grand scale of change. It is an important time for artists, like myself, to reflect on these matters that deserve awareness. A huge part of creating art, for me, is working to have a deeper understanding of myself and what life means to me. I find the more that I push ideas to create art, the more I uncover layers of myself that I hadn’t seen before. Creating art helps me understand what is truly important to myself.

“When you live in a world deadened by mental abstraction, you don’t sense the aliveness of the universe anymore. Most people don’t inhabit a living reality, but a conceptualized one.” -Eckhart Tolle. 

This idea influences my everyday life in practicing awareness of when I drift mentally from the present moment. It is not easy to practice being aware. I find myself, as he states, living a conceptualized life. One immersed in reminiscing the past, the friends I once had, and experiences that I have lived, which no longer exist. I drift into thoughts of the future, where I would rather be, what I want my life to look like, and I understand that there will also be a future self that views my current state the same way, all the while undermining and dismissing my present self, the true one that exists now. 

I am deeply influenced by the lessons I am taught by nature. There is a hill that I drive by every day, and in front of it sits a tree. I have noticed that when spring comes, the hill blooms, becoming a lush green, and by contrast, the tree below dries up and goes dormant. Later in the fall, the hill will turn brown and dry up while the tree miraculously sprouts a volume of bright green leaves. There is an unspoken balance between the two of them: one will thrive, the other will fall, and it happens again and again like clockwork. Now, I don’t imagine that either of them gets angry or resists the change. They fluctuate with grace, understanding their time to flourish will come again. This deeply inspires me to accept the fluctuations of life and understand that there will be changes regardless of how I perceive them, good or bad. Ultimately, to practice being present in my current state, however it may be.

These themes of being present come up for me in the process of creating art. Whether it be with ceramics or oil painting, I exist in a new state outside of my thoughts in these processes. This is what drives me to create.

As I have transitioned into adulthood, I have become immensely aware of the overwhelming societal pressures that present women in an entirely oversexualized light. It can be alienating being surrounded by these portrayals, as I don’t resonate with what society deems us to be. I feel the need, out of frustration, to combat this obsession that our society has with belittling the power of women. I strive to show the inherent essence of women outside of the veil in which society currently views them. The idea that we are not merely objects for pleasure, but we exist as is without others’ perceptions. This is what inspires me to create.

Ultimately, my work serves as a microcosm of my experiences, thoughts, frustrations, and desires; to mirror the complexities of womanhood, further inspire the appreciation of the feminine identity, find the aliveness in the natural world, and encourage viewers to see beyond societal standards, embracing a more authentic and empowering perspective.